Dear Winterites,
And we’re back to doing assignments that I actually don’t hate doing! Woohoo!
To begin the week, Monday’s class wasn’t completely useless or a waste of time. It was even fun. Well, the prof cracked a few jokes, so if anything, we were engaged and entertained. That’s something. We reviewed the assignments we’ll be working on for the next 2 weeks, and I’m looking forward to getting started. I’m much happier giving my time to actual animation classes than the design classes. My strengths shine in creativity, and animation allows us to explore our creative side more than design does. You might not think that to be the case, but it’s true.
Class ended early, and I spent the remainder of my day trying to be productive. I think I succeeded. Got through most of another assignment and a few other various tasks. Not a bad start to the week. Not compared to last week, anyway.
Now, Tuesday was a fun day. We got to dive into our animation assignment, this one known as the flour sack. We’ve been given two flour sacks and a sequence to put them through. How we animate them is up to us. We can be as creative as we want, using Looney Toons as reference, specifically Wile E Coyote. It’s great fun! I’m making my flour sacks super sassy and feisty. It’s hilarious. Time passes so quickly in this class!
(This is my original path of action for these characters. I will continue to develop them throughout this week and next. I already can't wait to see how the final animation will turn out!)
To be honest, I kind of wish I could just audit the courses that I want to take so I could avoid the ones that I hate. It would mean no degree, no grades, and probably a harder time getting a job in the field (probably also couldn’t get student loans that way, so it would be far outside my financial capacity), but then I could just enjoy the things I actually want to learn. I’m here to gain some new skills while trying something new anyway.
Whatever though. That’s just a random thought since I wish I could avoid classes like the gen eds at all costs. They’re time consuming and serve little to no purpose. Still considering switching to scriptwriting as my focus course instead of animation. We'll see!
Speaking of! In our scriptwriting class, we practiced writing telephone conversations in scripts. Mine ended up being about 3 pages. Nothing spectacular, but it helped with getting the ideas flowing. Kind of like a warmup. I might post that as a separate blog post later on, so keep an eye out for that!
In the evening I helped my roommate with one of her assignments. Just a wee bit of acting.
Terrible acting, probably, but it was hilarious and fun.
Wednesday was back to the flour sacks. I worked on fixing timing and getting some of the in betweens filled in for a more complete animation. And then I worked on another assignment that . . . is weird and I don’t fully understand it’s purpose. I'm not gonna get into it. It's not for an animation specific course.
For our life drawing class on Thursday, we worked without a model. Which means gestures were done via video. I think I only got one good gesture done. Then we did another sequence and mine got a little bit squished together on one side of the page. Oops. Poor spacing on my part. Oh well, hah!
(The gestures on the left I was having a bit of a difficult time with, so the prof came and helped give me some guidance. I'm super grateful because I was focusing on the wrong thing and complicating it for myself, and she helped me to simply refocus. Then the gesture on the right is the only one that actually turned out. It's the only one I like, anyway.)
(This was the sequence. Pretty fun stuff!)
Our focus was on the eyes and nose. We’re continuing with the Loomis Head formula, which is going to take some getting used to.
(Okay. All of these actually look ridiculous in their current state. As we're slowly breaking the entire face down into simplified forms, eventually we'll have completed models. They're going to have to suffer with looking a tad duck-like for a little while longer.)
In our character design class, we started working on the clean up of our head rotations. I nearly finished mine in class, but there are a few more adjustments that are still required. I guess that will be a later in the week or perhaps on the weekend thing. Good times though. This is fun stuff!
(Slowly adding the details. Keeping the hearts all the same is proving a challenge. But I suppose it can't all be easy.)
And on Friday we wrapped up the week of classes with more animation. Mine is coming together. But I need to wait for some draw overs from my prof before I continue, so I worked on other assignments. Touched on the ball and tail we need to animate for our practices and principles class, and decided to finish the character rotation, since I had time.
(This is where I'm currently at. It will only continue to improve!)
(And this is the updated character rotation. Isn't she adorable!?)
I’m hoping to use the evening and weekend for personal projects because . . .
I can’t keep neglecting them if I want to make deadlines! Time to kick this butt back into gear!
Comments